50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 728 Visiting the Enterprise

Although it's called a submarine refit, it's not as complicated as you might imagine.

This is, after all, a brand new submarine. The hull hasn't been submerged in seawater for long, so it only needs a simple cleaning.

The Trafalgar-class submarines have sound-absorbing tiles installed on their hulls, so they cannot be treated casually.

In the future, if there is a long voyage, all that is needed is to clean the sound-absorbing tiles and the seaweed and shells in the gaps.

So, the most demanding task today is simply erasing the text and changing the name.

Two hours later, the Enterprise appeared before everyone looking brand new.

After inspecting the ship, Sun Zhiwei was very satisfied with the large English letters 'Enterprise' on the bow and the hull number 001 at the stern.

"Very good. Now I order everyone to board the ship."

Led by the team leaders, 100 crew members boarded the submarine in an orderly manner. Once inside, the crew members lined up for their first tour.

The Trafalgar-class submarine is smaller than the Type 091 submarine currently in use, but it is far superior in terms of structure, layout, and performance.

Because the equipment is more advanced and occupies less space, it saves more room.

Therefore, although the Enterprise was not particularly large, it provided the crew with more comfortable living conditions.

It can maintain a constant temperature of 18.5°C, standard humidity and air quality inside the submarine, and can also store more fresh water and a wider variety of food.

The submarine also features a dedicated recreation room and gym.

As is well known, the British Navy has a strict hierarchy, and there is a significant difference in treatment between ordinary soldiers and officers.

The Enterprise, much like other British surface ships, even had a tea room so that officers could have afternoon tea—it was simply outrageous.

The crew members who toured the cabins shook their heads after seeing the recreation rooms, gyms, and tea rooms.

They all believed that submarines were meant for fighting wars, and that having so many unused compartments was a complete waste of space inside the submarine.

"With this spare space, it would be good to install a few more torpedoes."

These were all things the crew members said to each other during their visit, which Sun Zhiwei overheard clearly using his spatial ability.

Sun Zhiwei disagrees with this.

Unlike other ships, once a submarine submerges, the crew often has to stay in this small space for a long time and control the noise so they can't speak loudly.

This oppressive environment is a severe test for the crew members' physical and mental well-being.

The likelihood of submarine crew members developing mental illnesses such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and neurasthenia is greatly increased.

If there were some cabin facilities on board to alleviate anxiety, the occurrence of these kinds of problems could be significantly reduced.

Our 091 doesn't have these things on it, partly because it's the first model with limited performance and low space utilization, so we can't set up this kind of entertainment space.

Another reason is that our soldiers have an extraordinary faith, and the harsh environment cannot weaken their fighting spirit.

But Sun Zhiwei's place isn't the military, so he can't impose military standards on his employees.

Rather than saving space for longer endurance, he preferred to increase entertainment and medical facilities to reduce the risk of crew illness. However, our homemade submarines won't always be without entertainment facilities; with technological advancements, improvements in all aspects will undoubtedly follow.

Sun Zhiwei has never worried about improving the performance of our submarines.

Because he has sent more than one advanced foreign submarine to our home over the years, our engineers must have a way to extract enough technical knowledge from the actual submarines.

After figuring out all the compartments of the submarine, everyone began to divide the work, taking up their familiar positions according to their areas of expertise.

They were originally selected based on their ability to pilot a submarine, and their roles on the submarine during their service were all different.

Therefore, once they were packed into a submarine, they naturally fulfilled the basic operational requirements of a submarine.

These crew members were former submariners, but even after arriving on a new submarine, they couldn't immediately get it up and running.

Operating a submarine is not like riding a bicycle; pressing the wrong button could lead to the destruction of the submarine and loss of life. Therefore, the first step in operating a submarine is to take a theory class.

The theoretical lessons will explain the functions and technical principles of the submarine's equipment, enabling the crew to understand how these devices operate.

In this way, when problems arise on the submarine, they are able to troubleshoot them themselves, which is extremely important for the submarine after it has set sail.

In the darkness of the water, there are no engineers to repair their submarines.

There is a lot to learn, because this Enterprise submarine is different from the submarines we have at home, both in terms of layout and buttons. Previous experience can only be used as a reference.

Because there are many new functional devices on this submarine that they have never seen before, they cannot start training without understanding the purpose and principles of these devices.

Technically speaking, the Enterprise is indeed much more advanced than our 091.

Aside from its own innovations, most of the technology used in British submarines was licensed from America.

America's submarine technology is on par with that of the Soviet Union, and in some aspects, it is even superior.

This is actually determined by the respective R&D characteristics of the two companies.

The Russians are known for their powerful aircraft; they even have some models of bombers and submarines made of titanium alloy.

In this day and age, the manufacturing cost of titanium alloys is higher than that of gold. Imagine what it would be like to build a 100-meter-long submarine out of gold.

The scientists from Russia really didn't care about the research and development costs in order to complete their assigned tasks; that's how powerful the national system is.

However, the equipment from the Russians also has many shortcomings, the most important being that its reliability is not as good as America's.

Statistics show that since the first nuclear submarine was built in the 1930s, there have been 11 major nuclear submarine accidents worldwide.

Of these, America had two cases and Russia had six.

The equipment from the Russians is certainly up to standard or even ahead of its time, but there are always various shortcomings in terms of accessories.

For example, America's submarines were equipped with automatic fire suppression systems long ago, but the Russians were slow to adopt them.

After everyone was in place, Sun Zhiwei first introduced them to the equipment and buttons on the ship, which he had already memorized.

After the introductions were finished, he had the crew put Chinese character labels on each button.

(End of this chapter)